Popular Cults

1
Popular Cults

• Family cult
• Ancestral cult
• The household gods gods of the door, of the
  hearth, of the beds, of the courtyards, or the
  earth
• Innumerable popular deities in localities
• Ancient sages, great poets, warrior heroes, gods
  in Daoist pantheon, illustrious monks, great
  Buddhist saints and deities, gods of soil and
  gods of ramparts
• Gods continued to proliferate
• Local gods were associated with spiritualistic
  practices
• Mediums, (spirit-mediums included), visionaries,
  prophets abounded among the people
• Madmen, idiots, beggars in rags might be the
  incarnation of Buddhist and Daoist deities

2
The Cult of Popular Gods

• Hierarchy in the pantheon of celestial
  bureaucracy
• Jade Emperor at the top
• The wall-and-moat gods, or city gods (cheng-huang
  shen) at the bottom
• City gods were local gods, some of which emerged
  as a result of Buddhist influence
• A god associated with wall Pisha men, originated
  from Indian Visaravana.

3
From Suppression to Acceptance

• Many local gods were considered unruly and
  suppressed by Confucians, Buddhists, and Taoists
• Reasons many of them involved blood sacrifice
  and killing or terminating human life
• They were accepted probably because officials and
  clerics transformed them into less bloodthirsty
  cults
• A monk became powerful by meditating, capable of
  converting an unruly god

4
The Cult of Pi-sha-men (Pishamen, Vaisrvana)

• One of the four Buddhist Heavenly Kings from
  India, cult of this local god began from the 8th
  century
• Often pictured carrying a halberd, money bag, or
  mongoose
• Associated with walls and gates in India, Central
  Asia, and China
• In China symbol of protector of cities
• Statue or image always appeared on wall towers,
  often in the northwest corner of city wall
• Held a spear or trident in his right hand and a
  stupa in his left

5
The Cult of Guan Yu

• Guan Yu (Kuan Yu Lord Guan) A hero of the
  Three Kingdoms period
• Deified as a popular god because of his unmatched
  prowess and fighting skills
• Buddhist monks converted him into a Buddhist
  guardian deities or monastic guardian (Qielan
  shen Chieh-lan shen)

6
The Wall-and-Moat Gods

• Also known as City Gods (Cheng-huang shen),
  became popular during the Tang along with the
  introduction of the Pishamen cult and the
  proliferation of monastic guardians
• Answer the prayer for stopping rain or draught
• Nameless at the initial stage
• Began to have names and identities later
• Such as King Rui of Wu
• Names were awarded by local govt
• Became bureaucratic gods, representing the lowest
  level of bureaucratic hierarchy, similar to
  temple gods, hill gods, and water gods and ranked
  higher than earth gods (tudi shen, tudi gong)

7
Spirit of the Deceased

• Spirit of the deceased go to the netherworld
  created imaginatively by Buddhists and Taoists
• The spirits journey in the underworld involved
  the meeting with the ten kings, who reviewed the
  records of the dead, adjusted lifespan
  accordingly, and decided the dead was a sinner
  and where the liminal body of the sinner should
  go.

8
A Sinners Journey in the Netherworld

• A sinner would be led from one torture to another
• His neck was encircled with a cangue, his hand
  bound, and his feet shackled
• Would be led to some chambers
• Where he would be nailed down to a wooden bed
  with metal spikes
• Or underwent a special form of mutilation
• Finally assigned a path of lower rebirth, such as
  animal, hungry ghost, or hell being, if without
  posthumous support from family,

9
Popular Beliefs

• Fighting demons, ghosts, or fantastic creatures
• Use the sound of firecrackers, drums and gongs to
  chase them away
• Strike them with a stick or a sword when seeing
  them
• Scare them away with willow or peach branches or
  artemisia
• Use symbols, such as designs of ramparts and
  moats, shields and halberds, designs using magic
  written characters
• Place objects in their pathwhite jade
• Hire sorcerers, Daoist priests, Buddhist monks to
  exorcise them
• Marvels and mysteries in daily life
• Consult almanacs, horoscopes, and geomancers

10
Exorcists and Mediums

• Master Demon Seers (Jiangui shi)
• Daoist priests
• Buddhist monks
• Spirit-mediums
• Exorcism--two stages
• suspend a talisman and sword over a basin of
  water to detect the demon or use the light of
  celestial bodies when confronted by prodigies on
  the road
• Summon demon/ghost for investigation by
  compelling the possession of a young boy, then
  expel or ward the demon off
• Note that both the spirit mediums and patients
  were possessed

11
Sinicization of Tantric Buddhism

• Tantric Buddhism continued affecting Chinese
  Buddhism and Daoism, mixing with Daoism and
  causing Daoist therapeutic rituals to become
  tantricized
• Daoist ritual of Summoning for Investigation
  assimilated Tantric Rites of Vijra-Being of
  Impure Trace or Rites of Ucchusma (Huiji
  jingang fa), making the latter a popular form of
  exorcism and therapeutic ritual.

12
The Convergence of Buddhist and Daoist Exorcisms

• Daoist Ritual Masters became devotees of the
  Buddhist Rites of the Three Altars and Rites of
  Ucchusma
• Buddhist performances of the Rites of the Three
  Altars and Rites of Uccusma often included
  elements borrowed directly from Daoist Rites of
  Summoning for Investigation
• Spirit-mediums performed exorcism independently,
  functioning like the Daoist or Tantric Ritual
  masters.

13
Secret Society

• A religious sect known as Demon Worshippers
  became popular in Fujian, Zhejiang, and the
  Yangzi river valley
• Directed by an individual known as the Demon
  King, and the Demon Father and the Demon Mother
  as his aids
• Practiced a kind of communalism of ownership,
  strictly observed abstinence of meat and alcohol
  
• Proscribed the worship of all Daoist and Buddhist
  deities as well as ancestral cult and recognized
  only the sun and the moon as the only gods, which
  they considered to be true Buddhas.
• Doctrines life is nothing but suffering, but
  death brings final salvation